I done messed up - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi all. I recently rooted the wife's Att Galaxy S3 phone and proceeded to make several blunders after that. In an attempt to get rid of all the bloatware, I accidentally uninstalled the little "text to speech" portion of the factory SMS app. Big mistake #1. I then looked and looked for the factory messaging app on the Play Store, but couldn't find it. I was hoping that I could download and install it again, and gain the little text to speech thing back. Couldn't find it on the play store anywhere. So then I rushed into uninstalling the whole factory SMS app. That was probably big mistake number 2. So then, in a panic, I factory reset the phone. Hoping that it would reinstall all the factory apps and bloatware and such. Of course doing this only made things worse by getting rid of all her contacts. Big mistake number 3. Now I can't even log into the play store because I have no messaging app. I'm screwed.
What do I do to get messaging aall the contacts back? What is the easiest way to get the factory SMS app back, while making sure it still has that handy little text to speech thing built in? And isn't there some way to log into your Gmail account, and tell the phone to use that backup, to get all the contacts back? I haven't messed up this bad with computers in a LONG time and it hurts lol.

Is there anybody out there? I guess this forum lost a lot of its former traffic

Couldn't you flash a custom rom and restore data during setup? Or extract the messaging app from a stock rom and replace it in system/app with a root explorer. I'm not sure of the dir...
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium

Related

Spyware, and how to figure out what installed it.

Ok, maybe I'm in the wrong place. But here goes.
My phone is trying to send text to paid numbers behind my back. I'm using prepaid so it doesn't work. I get a "You have insufficient funds to send this text" message daily, at random times.
I have no pirated apps. Everything on my phone came straight from the market. However, I've not installed a single one of the apps that was on the recent list all over tech sites.
I'm planning on reflashing with a different rom and changing all the passwords that were stored on my phone.
BUT.
Before I do this, I want to find out which app is causing this behavior. Any Ideas on how to find out what is sending random text from my phone (they don't show up in the messaging app)
viogrep said:
Ok, maybe I'm in the wrong place. But here goes.
My phone is trying to send text to paid numbers behind my back. I'm using prepaid so it doesn't work. I get a "You have insufficient funds to send this text" message daily, at random times.
I have no pirated apps. Everything on my phone came straight from the market. However, I've not installed a single one of the apps that was on the recent list all over tech sites.
I'm planning on reflashing with a different rom and changing all the passwords that were stored on my phone.
BUT.
Before I do this, I want to find out which app is causing this behavior. Any Ideas on how to find out what is sending random text from my phone (they don't show up in the messaging app)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Install a android antivirus and firewall like Lookout.
Sent from my GingerBread Eris using XDA App
lookout finds nothing. All the other AV software fails to install. "Unknown error -18"
i have plenty of free space.
viogrep,
I wrote a novel, but then thought I should just ask a few preliminary questions:
Q1) does the error message contain any useful "hints", such as the destination number ?
Q2) if you use a logcat - capturing app, does anything show up in the logcat right around the time the message is generated which might provide some further clues?
There's a lot of different techniques you can use, but they require a bit of effort - not only to perform, but to explain, too.
Q3) Are you willing to post up the output of the "ps" command to a pastebin?
Q4) What apps on your phone request "SEND_SMS" privileges? You can find out with
Code:
strings /data/system/packages.xml > /sdcard/strings-pkgs-xml.txt
and then poking through the "strings-pkgs-xml.txt" file. When you see (for instance)
name="android.permission.SEND_SMS"
the immediately prior package is what requested it. Either that or you can do something tricky like
Code:
strings /data/system/packages.xml | awk '/<package name/{pkg=$2;}; /_SMS/{print pkg, $2;}'
bftb0
1. No destination number in the error. Sorry.
2. Also, no clues in logcat from what I've seen.
3. PS > http://pastebin.com/iUAfP9Yb
4. Besides the default gapps, the only other app with SEND_SMS priv. is Koxx Pure Messenger. (Purchased from the market, Have had for awhile, the sms sending is new)
Going to try to call my provider and see if I can get the number that's been denied because of funds.
*edit* No luck with provider.
I'd really like to know whats doing it so I don't install the same app once I flash. Luckily I keep nothing important on my phone. Its gmail account is actually a duplicate with my original forwarding to it. I'm a tiny bit overprotective over my email(address). :x
viogrep said:
4. Besides the default gapps, the only other app with SEND_SMS priv. is Koxx Pure Messenger. (Purchased from the market, Have had for awhile, the sms sending is new)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know that it isn't necessarily this simple, but if that really is the only other app besides the GAPPs with SMS priveledges, especially coupled with the knowledge that the SMS capability is new, I think you have your answer.
If you tried a new ROM and restored all but that one app, and the problem never happens again then you can be 95% sure. Only way to be 100% sure is that after a certain length of time without a problem (a week?) you reinstall Koxx and then if the problem starts happening again.
I looked through your "ps" listing.
Didn't see anything too obvious sticking out at me; there were a couple of non-market apps running though. I know that there is no theoretical reason why non-market apps would be malicious - on the other hand, I sort of wonder why they are not on the market... you know what I mean? What is stopping them? (In the case of Tubemate - which was actually kicked off of Google's market, my suspicions are even higher. I realize it was not kicked off because of malware; but still...)
These were the only processes that were either not on my phone, or I didn't really recognize.
Code:
com.dylan.tube = [Non-Market App] Tubemate
com.gau.golauncherex.notification = GO Launcher EX (READ SMS)
com.levelup.beautifulwidgets = Beautiful Widgets (LevelUp)?
com.revsodev.volumecontrol = [Non-Market App] Volume Control (Cyrket?)
com.swype.android.inputmethod = Swype?
com.tencent.research.drop = QQPlayer (no perms req'd?)
net.bajawa.battery = BattStatt (no perms req'd?)
org.sipdroid.sipua = Sipdroid VoIP + video
The Road Warrior has an idea which is sort of useful; but I'll modify it to use binary division.
Start with a freshly installed, clean ROM, and only install half of your apps. (I would put all of your most frequently used apps in the first half, and delay any non-market apps as long as possible). Here's how this goes:
- if the "half" you put on the phone is trouble-free (long enough to know the SMS popup thing is not going on), then, install half of the remaining apps, and wait again to see if there is a problem.
- if the "half" you put on the phone develops trouble, then you know that the problem app is in that group. Wipe the phone and re-install all prior "halves" (that caused no trouble), but split the current half (the group containing the suspect app) in half, and only install that. Proceed in this fashion until you are down to the app which causes the trouble.
If you have 128 apps on your phone, and you wait 1 day between installations, it will take 7 days to find the malicious app. (And if you don't get a failure within the first two days, your phone will have 3/4s of it's apps installed - that's not too bad).
The thing is though, even if you had an app compromise your phone, it might not be an "app" that is doing the dirty work any longer. For example, the most recently discovered malware ran rooting exploits against the device, and once successful, downloaded and installed "other stuff". That "other stuff" could be native binaries. So, examining permissions in the system manifest doesn't necessarily guarantee that you have exhaustively looked at your phone, or discovered all possible means of interacting with the SMS system.
It might be "just an app", though - and if it were me, the first ones that I would suspect are non-Market apps, or apps that *cough* got downloaded from "freeware" sites.
Thanks for the responses. I actually did a fresh flash last night. First thing I installed was tubemate (running through non market apps) and it did it. Ironically I added some money to my account to see if I could get the number it was trying to text. Apparently it still couldn't go through.
Sent from my FroShedYo V10-ERIS using XDA App
I had a game from a Chinese developer that stole my gmail. Log into yours from the website and see if you get a red warning.
Sent from my GSBv1.9 ERIS using XDA App
viogrep said:
Thanks for the responses. I actually did a fresh flash last night. First thing I installed was tubemate (running through non market apps) and it did it. Ironically I added some money to my account to see if I could get the number it was trying to text. Apparently it still couldn't go through.
Sent from my FroShedYo V10-ERIS using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm always amazed when something I suggested actually works. LOL. It's just that I'm used to things being more complicated than I hope.
Glad you figured out the trouble!
Thanks bt and RW for the help.
As far as the gmail thing... I use a different gmail address on my phone with email forwarded (different pass)...
If it gets taken I just stop the forwarding and make a new one. Makes things a more simple. Sure, they can see past emails, but they cant request passes/info from other sites... (I also monitor the login IPs in gmail, religiously. Just a habbit.)
viogrep said:
Thanks bt and RW for the help.
As far as the gmail thing... I use a different gmail address on my phone with email forwarded (different pass)...
If it gets taken I just stop the forwarding and make a new one. Makes things a more simple. Sure, they can see past emails, but they cant request passes/info from other sites... (I also monitor the login IPs in gmail, religiously. Just a habbit.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome. You could just change your password from the web if your phone gets stolen.
Especially since it's the gmail address you use on your phone that everything is sync'd to, not the one that's forwarding to it. So if you got another Android phone you'd lose all your contact info and bought and installed apps info, calendar and such. Unless you sync them manually which is so much harder in my experience.
Or you could use one of the many free apps out there that would let you remotely do many things to your phone. Turn the GPS on, triangulate your phone, make your phone scream, do a factory reset to erase everything...
Just a suggestion.

[Q] Restore S Memo

I removed a bunch of bloat apps with Titanium and wanted to restore S Memo to try out S Voice a little more and discovered that the restore doesn't work. It opens but immediately FCs. All the other bloat apps install back just fine. I even pasted in SMemo.apk,SMemo.odex,SMemoProvider.apk,SMemoProvider.odex from an S3 rom dump and no go. Any ideas? It isn't incredibly important but still driving me a bit nuts.
To clarify, I'm trying to see if anyone knows the full dependencies for this app. I have searched high and low on xda and others and this app is specifically problematic but it SHOULD work when on stock with TW.
I was also trying to work this out the other day. There are some guides on de-odexing the S memo app which, thinking about it, might hint at it's dependencies.
see here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1724567
Have you had any luck?

Can I freeze the phone dialer?

I have a TMO Vibrant that I want to give to my 8 year old daughter so she can play games on it. There's no SIM card, but of course she can still (accidentally) call 911. I would like to just freeze the phone app, but I want to be sure that I can safely (from the phone point of view) do so. In other words, will it break the phone if I freeze the phone app? I am also hoping it will get rid of the "No sim card installed. Emergency calls only" warnings that won't go away. Secondly, if I can freeze the phone app, what exactly is the phone app called in TB? I don't see it there. I am using MIUI 20330 on kernel 2.6.35.12, android 2.3.7
MrGibbage said:
I have a TMO Vibrant that I want to give to my 8 year old daughter so she can play games on it. There's no SIM card, but of course she can still (accidentally) call 911. I would like to just freeze the phone app, but I want to be sure that I can safely (from the phone point of view) do so. In other words, will it break the phone if I freeze the phone app? I am also hoping it will get rid of the "No sim card installed. Emergency calls only" warnings that won't go away. Secondly, if I can freeze the phone app, what exactly is the phone app called in TB? I don't see it there. I am using MIUI 20330 on kernel 2.6.35.12, android 2.3.7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not too sure about the missing SIM card alert, but freezing the dialer app is very easy too do, and shouldn't cause any problems. There are also multiple ways to accomplish the task, however, I believe the most effective way would be to "manually" freeze the app. This can be done by following these steps:
Download an app like Root Explorer, if you don't already have it or don't have the money, a free alternative is Super Manager.
Go to the root of the phone, the directory being "/".
Go into the "system" folder. (Directory: "/system")
Then go into the "app" folder. (Directory: "/system/app")
Look around until you find an app called "phone.apk".
Rename it to "phone.apk.bak". This will effectively freeze the phone app.
It might also not hurt to freeze the contacts app, various email clients (gmail & email), the messaging app (mms), and other like apps using the same method mentioned in the previous steps.
Once the apps are frozen, you can even delete the file explorer app you used so that those core system files can't be accessed by your daughter.
For further monitoring of your daughter's device, you could even try an app like APP Lock. With a little bit of in app tweaking, you can block access to phone settings and even require a password to install and uninstall apps.
Another suggestion, you may also want to look into this ROM, I have a feeling it may satisfy your needs... http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1566651.
If you need any help or have a question, please, don't hesitate to ask.
MrGibbage said:
I have a TMO Vibrant that I want to give to my 8 year old daughter so she can play games on it. There's no SIM card, but of course she can still (accidentally) call 911. I would like to just freeze the phone app, but I want to be sure that I can safely (from the phone point of view) do so. In other words, will it break the phone if I freeze the phone app? I am also hoping it will get rid of the "No sim card installed. Emergency calls only" warnings that won't go away. Secondly, if I can freeze the phone app, what exactly is the phone app called in TB? I don't see it there. I am using MIUI 20330 on kernel 2.6.35.12, android 2.3.7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha! For once, it's someone BEING ABLE to call 911 that's the problem. :silly:
That was really good help. Thanks. Anyone know how to make the "Emergency calls only" notification go away? There must be some app that looks for a SIM card that puts it up there. Or maybe it's baked into the kernel and it can't be disabled???
Uninstall sim tool kit or stk from titanium backup to get the notificqtion to go away
Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda premium

Seriously annoyed by app sync

I just went from Paranoid Android to CyanogenMod, and expected to have to re-add several apps. If I go from an AOSP ROM back to a TouchWiz ROM, it is treated as a different device, and I get an app list months old. I was pleased to see Android attempting to download my newest set of apps...
However, the sync failed like it does 50% of the time (every app individually fails). Now when I visit the Google Play store, I see my 'new' phone with only a couple of apps installed. I just lost the entire list. Since there's no way to batch install apps with the Play Store, I get to spend a looooong time looking up and reinstalling them by clicking around like an idiot.
Am I missing something? Every element of the story I just described seems like awful design. I'd really not like to resort to AppBrain or something like it. It's incredibly stupid that if the Play Store has some error syncing apps, it makes the new short list the new goal for syncing (so, it won't even try next time).
In short, it would be ideal to have my list of installed apps tied to my account, so that in the event of a problem, I could just push a large "Yes, download ****ing everything" button. Apps that aren't compatible with THIS device can just be skipped I guess. Why is this so hard? Instead I'm going down my 'All' list on my phone, tapping 5 times per app to install them one by ****ing one.
Why don't you just backup apps with titanium and then restore them when you flash a new rom? Titanium has batch commands so it's pretty much one click for each. You can also set up a back up schedule so things are always backed up
Aside from my hesitation to use another app to perform a function that is already supported...
Is Titanium storing the apps themselves, or a list of apps? I really really really do not want to store several MB/GB of data which may or may not be corrupted. If anything, I want to simply store a list of apps, which will all re-download upon restoring the backup.
AndrewZorn said:
Aside from my hesitation to use another app to perform a function that is already supported...
Is Titanium storing the apps themselves, or a list of apps? I really really really do not want to store several MB/GB of data which may or may not be corrupted. If anything, I want to simply store a list of apps, which will all re-download upon restoring the backup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea it will store all the apps. But if they are working, they probably aren't corrupt.
Also, I have had a few phones over the years linked to my Google account and the play store is never segmented by phone. All my apps that I have been using since my OG Droid show up on my note 2. The times I have let the play store sync my apps they all downloaded fine as long as your screen doesn't turn off which you can force to stay on in the dev settings
I have been using titanium for 5 years now. And have restored my apps literally hundreds of times. Never once did it not work. Never had a single failure. I also have only had the play store re install my apps once. That was the very first time time I flashed a rom back on my droid. That was the first and only time it did that.
Sent from my SCH-I605 using xda premium
Simply as a matter of principle, I am not concerned with storing the apps themselves. The entire point of the app sync is to keep track of what I have installed. Backing up the apps themselves strikes me as a different goal entirely.
I've had many successful restores myself, but just as many failures. It isn't that difficult of a task... and if it does fail, when every app for some reason (even if it is a legitimate one) isn't installed , there's no way to retry the process. Your new list of synced apps is now the tiny amount that succeeded, the rest are lost to needing to manually reselect. This is absurd.
Multiple phones are definitely treated as separate app lists. I have 5 devices on my Play Store account; each has its own list of associated apps.
This is because every time you flash your phone, or factory reset for that matter, your phone gets a new device ID. That makes it look like a new device to the play store. This will happen anytime you flash a ROM and wipe data. Dirty flashes do not change the ID.
If you use titanium back up, it automatically stores your device ID, so it will prompt you to revert it back the first time opening it after flashing the ROM. This will allow you to maybe reinstall apps through play store, or at least keep the "app list".
I personally think you are being petty about this. It's not Google's fault you are constantly flashing your phone and creating new app ID's.
Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 2
I have had the play store fail upon sync before, but it has never failed to keep the list of all the apps I've installed on any device tied to my google account. Strange that said list got wiped for you.
I'd just install a backup app and call it a day. I use Ultimate Backup Pro, by Jrummy. The newest version will sync your apps (a list, or the data) to Dropbox, Box, or Google Drive.
^^^ +1 for this
nrfitchett4 said:
This is because every time you flash your phone, or factory reset for that matter, your phone gets a new device ID. That makes it look like a new device to the play store. This will happen anytime you flash a ROM and wipe data. Dirty flashes do not change the ID.
If you use titanium back up, it automatically stores your device ID, so it will prompt you to revert it back the first time opening it after flashing the ROM. This will allow you to maybe reinstall apps through play store, or at least keep the "app list".
I personally think you are being petty about this. It's not Google's fault you are constantly flashing your phone and creating new app ID's.
Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd like to agree that it is petty, or believe the terms of the problem as you describe them.
It isn't petty that a feature is not working correctly. Flashing a phone gives a new device ID, but so does losing it, or replacing it. You're passing off the lack of harmony as my mistake.
The mere fact none of us can find a way to retry the app sync proves my point; this argument alone brings me a bit of closure, because at least I am not the only one with the issue. If you are all happy with backing up actual program data instead of realizing the power of a synced list, fine. To suggest this behavior is the intention of Google, however, is nonsense.
...and one last word: if it were as simple as getting a new device ID upon each flash, surely I'd be able to log in to the Play Store and view the list of apps on my 'old' device, right? How does Google know that device no longer exists? How are the two ideas of "syncing apps, but not across different devices" and "getting a new ID upon flash, then attempting to sync" both able to exist?
Perhaps I'm wrong about all of this, but can you really say using 3rd party software to remedy a failed sync is not noteworthy? I specifically remember myself mocking the idea of avoiding 3rd party software when a user wanted to solve a problem... this is much different. This is a legitimate issue with an existing feature.
AndrewZorn said:
If you are all happy with backing up actual program data instead of realizing the power of a synced list, fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No one said you should backup/restore app data, just the app itself. The app data is actually frowned upon for the most part. Although I have done it numerous times and have never had an issue, but that's a whole different can of worms
But in the end, you do what you want to do.
You are tilting at windmills.
There is a reason everyone uses an app backup program like Titanium or My Backup Pro (those are the two I use). It's the easiest/fastest way to restore apps. Google backup and restore was not intended for 'us' who root. No amount of believing its wrong the way it works is going to change that.
There are apps that will only backup the market link (to your storage) but the only one I know of does not have a one button restore. But it's called App List Backup if you want to check it out.
Sent from my SCH-I605 using xda premium
I love titanium backup. The fact that I can backup all of my apps and restore them plus restore data, such as the music that's already buffered on Google play music is great. Is a time saver! Imop
Sent from my SCH-I605 using xda app-developers app
I still feel like you guys are misunderstanding me (mostly, yes, I've tried App List Backup, and it's alright, "Google should already do this better" aside)...
Backing up programs themselves to create some huge file is a completely different thing than maintaining a list of installed apps on Google's servers. Completely different things. You may be willing to say they accomplish the same goal, something I disagree with. Let's stop talking about rooting and flashing, and start considering the idea of a lost/broken/corrupted phone. If the Google app sync worked better (in terms of reliability or feature set), it would be a painless task to have a new phone redownload all apps installed on the old one.
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AndrewZorn said:
I still feel like you guys are misunderstanding me (mostly, yes, I've tried App List Backup, and it's alright, "Google should already do this better" aside)...
Backing up programs themselves to create some huge file is a completely different thing than maintaining a list of installed apps on Google's servers. Completely different things. You may be willing to say they accomplish the same goal, something I disagree with. Let's stop talking about rooting and flashing, and start considering the idea of a lost/broken/corrupted phone. If the Google app sync worked better (in terms of reliability or feature set), it would be a painless task to have a new phone redownload all apps installed on the old one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You like to find problems instead of solutions. Sure it's a little bit of work to go down the Google Play list and install the one you want but how often are you planning to break/lose/corrupt your phone?
Backup file size. Backup to dropbox. Backup to your SDCard. Move your backup file to your PC.
Restoring a device to the way it was. Do a nandroid. Use your extSDCard. Root the new phone and restore. Boom exactly the way you left it.
I think you already mentioned that you didn't want to use AppBrain. But that is another potential solution.
I realize you want a perfect native Google solution but we are not the ones who can solve that for you. It would be a nice feature, but I still wouldn't use it. App backup gives me more control with really no downside. And nandroid is a perfect system restore with data intact.
Sent from my SCH-I605 using xda premium

[q] completely remove an app and leave no trace?

Hi folks! Well, I just thought I should stop by and ask cause I can't find anywhere else an answer to my problem.. Here it is:
I have an app that when someone downloads it from the Play Store, recognizes the phone and connects to a server (Internet is needed) so every time I open it I have all my data and my "app activity" shown there. So, here's the thing: I want to sell the phone to a friend of mine, but I don't want (neither does he) to reset to factory because he wants a large amount of the apps I have already intalled and it is part of the price.
So, I ask you: Is there a way to completely remove-uninstall an app and ALL of its data so that there is no way for the app to have MY data displayed, and basically the app is "reseted' to factory, so that my friend can use from scratch?
Thanks!
You can manually clear data for all apps in the settings.
Another solution is that you can backup all your app apks, factory reset and then restore the apks. This would be better because your google account would be removed too. I don't think that you plan on giving your friend access to your google account when you give him your phone.
Sent from my Fanta9stic using Tapatalk 2

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